The Agony of Discarding Books

"Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Journals"

I recently emptied out a whole cardboard box full of books that was in the basement of my parents’ house. They were an assortment of books stored up over several years; many of them had been given to me by the grandmother of an old friend, when she had to move out of her house into a retirement home. I kept more of them than I intended to, and now I struggle to find room for them on my shelves. But there were many that I did get rid of. For me, its just hard to give up a book.

Which is the more difficult goodbye – one read or unread? A book that has been read and enjoyed becomes a friend. You’ve learned from it, been moved by it – a book I qualify as good always changes me in some subtle way, so that I am not the same person I was before reading it. How can you simply abandon this channel from one soul to another, ever to be consulted and enjoyed again?

Yet the unread book holds mystery and potential. Something great, as yet undiscovered, could be lurking between those unassuming covers. Knowing there is an unread book on your shelf is a silent challenge. It beckons, and provides you with a measure of safety and reassurance – there is always that book, there, waiting. It can be grabbed on a moment’s notice, to be packed surreptiously among other travel essentials, like your toothbrush and a change of clean underwear.

Though I often find myself traveling with old friends. In times of stress and uncertainty, they are relaxing and somehow calming. And best of all for the distracted mind, the plot is already familiar, so it is more easily set down and picked up again later.

I suppose ideally, I would be able to keep forever every book that fell into my hands. But if I did that, I’d need a separate home just for my books.

Conversations at Midnight

“Ugh. I can’t breath. I’ll never get to sleep if I can’t breath.” She tossed in bed.

“What’s the matter?” He stifled a yawn.

“I’m all stuffed up.” She rubbed her eyes sleepily, emitting a peculiar squishing sound. “Hear that?”

“Gross. What is that?”

“It’s snot. All the snot has filled up my head, and my eyes are floating in it. When I rub my eyes, it squishes the snot around.”

“That is so gross. Medically impossible, and gross.” He pulled the pillow around his head and over his ears.

“No, its true. That’s why my ears hurt so much – the pressure of too much snot. It’s medical fact that the sinuses connect to the eye cavity.”

“Uh –huh.” He flipped over on his stomach.

“Hey, did you ever see that show on TV, where they show people with a hundred body piercings, or the old man who can stay under water for like half an hour at a time? Well, I was watching it this one time, and this guy was squirting milk out of his eye.”

“His eye? Oh, come on.”

“No, really! He has this rare condition. Just like snorting milk out your nose when you laugh, he can drink milk and shoot it out of his eye. Comes out the tear duct. He has to be careful not to get it infected, but he can shoot milk twenty feet.”

“Twenty feet?” He repeated dubiously.

“Well, ten or fifteen feet, anyway,” she waved the numbers aside. “He shot it across this bar like a squirt gun. His friends all put bets on how far it’d reach in front of the cameras.”

“And you’re going to do that with snot.”
“I’m not going to shoot it out of my eye! Snot’s too goopy and clumpy. Besides, I don’t know how.”

“Do we really have to talk about this? I’m trying to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep if I can’t breathe! I gotta figure a way to empty some of the snot out of my head.”

“Just go blow your nose.”

“You don’t understand; I’m all stuffed up. And I don’t have any tissues left, anyway.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Do you want me to go to the drugstore for you?”

“Oh, would you? She nuzzled his shoulder. “And get me some cold medicine, too?”

“Alright, alright,” he sighed. He staggered out of bed, tripping over a shoe in the dark.

“And a bag of chips,” she added brightly.

“Chips!”

“I’m hungry. I couldn’t eat anything at dinner, with such a bad cold.”

“I suppose you want ice tea to go with the chips.” She beamed at him, and he sighed forbearingly. “Alright. Cold medicine, tissues, chips, ice tea.”

“And maybe some throat lozenges.” She smiled up at him lovingly as he put on his coat.

An hour later, after three stops to find a drugstore open after midnight, he came back with a large grocery sack in his arms. There she lay, curled up on her side in the center of the bed, her cheek on her hand. She was fast asleep.